We aren't seeing "the Drunken Monkey" president any more, in fact, we are seeing the "Running Dubya" of 1996 - who, while not stellar, is no worse than many averagish candidates who win elections. Bush and his team are hoping to go into the debates with the Micheal Moore "Duh" image attached to him, and then, since he won't be that caricature, "win" the debate.
George Bush, then, is on track to do this, and win the election, because the debates are assuming monumental importance in this election cycle.
[Oh, and if you are bored with politicking for a while read the fourth installment of the science fiction/fantasy novel, "A World Without Fire".]
George W Bush went through most of his presidency in a haze. He was often incoherent, uttering "Bushisms" with a frequency which made it possible to run
write a book of them. Inchorent speeches, policies pursued without regard for their effect on the ordinary people, malapropisms - it would seem like a receipe for anhilation at the debate podium.
But that's not what is going to happen, because that is not the Bush we have been seeing - instead, he is smooth on the stump. Unmemorable, with bad speechwriting and terrible ideas about "borrow like there's no tomorrow" to create - not "spending" programs, but vast corporate subsidy programs which have the worst aspects of state run socialism and crony capitalism. However, he is not out of the cone of electability.
The word suspicious does not even begin to cover it. It resembles the Yeltsinian pattern - going on drinking binges and staying away from the action, allowing things to drfit the point of near collapse, only to go on a run of incandescent activity and mostly fix the most visible problems and push the rest down the road, only to collapse on "vacation". Bush shares this pattern. In Yeltsin's case it was drinking, stimulants and a heart condition that drove the cycle. I'm not going to speculate on what drives it with George W Bush, but it is unlikely to be merely his personality - because it clears up when he needs to.
Make no mistake about it, Bush's team knows the presidential cycle - which fellow Bopster Barry Ritholtz has written about - better than anyone since Nixon, and perhaps better than anyone ever - Nixon overplayed his election hand in 1972 and had no juice left in 1973. Bush is coming awake now for the same reason that interest rates are going up now - becuase he needs it to happen. The promises on "win and then go home" on Iraq are made, not because they are credible, but because the asleep 1% that will decide Congress and the asleep 5% that will decide the Presidency and the asleep 3% that will decide the senate (there is overlap, about 7% of the voting population will collectively decide who is in power for the next four years, our geographically bound system is now the most undemocratic of all democracies save Japan).
The flurry of more reasonable policies - though filled with pandering tax breaks for the business owner - and the flurry of George Bush the Coherent mean that Kerry has a problem: namely, he is a political sprinter facing another political sprinter. Kerry is not particularly a good campaigner, but he is used to being able to overwhelm the opposition with a massive burst of activity. Bush is too, and Bush is sprinting hard. Think on releasing the oil from the strategic reserve: to hold down high gasoline prices when he needs it.
Many people in the blogsphere want Kerry to hit Bush hard - this has to be done very carefully. Attack the actions, not the man. The optimal place for Kerry to get into the debate is if everyone feels that Bush has to "answer for" his mistakes. A coherent man having to answer for mistakes is political poison in the US. We will forgive incoherent men for having incoherent policies - we forgave, collectively, Reagan from 1986-1988. We will not forgive coherent men. This is Bush's only weakness in the debate: that to blaze on the campaign trail, and be on the stump, he has to be the "Running W". That means that the awake Bush, not the sonambulent Bush, has to be there. The asleep Bush could get away with being in front of the 911 comission without being under oath and with Dick Cheney. The Running Dubya cannot.
This also means something for the blogsphere - stop, completely, attacks on George Bush's intelligence, coherence etc. etc. Focus all attacks on Bush's policies, the results, the results, the results, and on the incoherence of his promises - promising more services, a lower deficit and lower revenues - can't happen. Promising both to crush the insurgency, hold elections, and go home - why should anyone who knows we are leaving give us crediblity?
Because Bush's best position is to walk in with people attacking him, with expectations of his performance very low, and then not being incoherent. His worst? Having to explain, under the glare of the lights, why we can't find Osama in Afghanistan, or Oil in Iraq.